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U.S. Playing Card Co. in Norwood is making another line of cards playing off the war in Iraq.

First, the company made the "Iraqi Most Wanted" cards that catapulted into a national craze with more than 700,000 decks sold, mostly on the Internet.
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Now, it's making a "Military Heroes" line for the same customer, Illinois-based Greatusaflags.com.

U.S. Playing Card shipped the stock last week, and the cards are available for purchase and shipping starting Friday.

While the "Iraqi Most Wanted" line was based on a real set distributed by the U.S. Department of Defense, the new line is mostly commemorative, said George White, U.S. Playing Card's vice president of marketing. He wouldn't say how many decks the company made.

The bottom line

As the value of its endowment plummets with the stock market, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra is acting just like a business. It has hired NorthStar Consulting Group to help write a new strategic plan, to be ready by fall.

The crux of the planning is to devise a way for the symphony to tour and record, maintain the quality of its performance and continue to break even on a $30 million budget.

That's been harder and harder. The CSO traditionally has relied on its endowment to support operations, drawing up to 6 percent annually from a pot that at one point reached $95 million.

But the endowment's value now is less than $70 million, meaning almost $2 million less than projected for operations this year. The CSO board has increased the maximum draw from the endowment to 8.35 percent in the current fiscal year and 8.7 percent next year, the CSO said.

The CSO realizes that it's fortunate to have the endowment. And another capital drive could happen in the next several years, trustee Rick Reynolds said.

"I don't want to say the industry's in trouble, but these aren't great times," he said.

Reality: It's a bummer

Here's a headline from Cincinnati's Empower Media Marketing that might make you smile: "The Fading Future of Reality TV."

"As with any genre, there are a few rising stars, but the 'reality' is that reality TV has produced a large menu of duds," Michele Toller, senior national media manager at Empower, wrote in the firm's most recent newsletter. "From a network's perspective, reality programming is a double-edged sword - while it's cheap to produce, it can't be repeated."

Toller and many national analysts expect networks to stick to more scripted programming this fall.

But for those of you craving more reality TV, don't worry. Fox has American Juniors - think American Idol for kids - in its new lineup.

Copyright © 2003. Cincinnati Enquirer.